Category: Hustler’s Kung Fu

We’re going to talk about American expectations versus the American Dream. Many people feel that the American Dream is dead and that it’s just like Moby Dick, a great work of fiction. Really, I don’t think the American Dream is dead. I don’t even think it’s on life support.

What is really the problem is the expectations that Americans have. Notice the great American Dream is about dreams. Dreams are something that are unrealized, something that you work on. Dreams are something that you focus on. They aren’t a given and that’s where we run into problems. The Great American Dream has become the Great American “Got It” for some people.

Part of the American Dream is getting a college degree. Here’s a fact for you. There are many people who aren’t suited for college. It doesn’t mean they’re not worthy. It doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent. It just means college is not their thing. Many people who didn’t set foot in college actually contributed greatly to this country. There are many, many accomplished people from many walks of life that did not attend college or who dropped out.

I think one of the things that is really problematic for our education system is that everyone is on the college track when there are a lot of things you can do to be productive and serve society without college. Actually, the wealthiest guy in the world didn’t graduate. That’s just another thing for you to think about.

Let’s talk about what is really killing people’s hopes and dreams. I am talking about the expectation that people have that doing well is a “Given.” People believe that because they went to college and sat “X” amount of hours in class that they are going to be successful.

Based on the number of people who protested in the Occupy Wall Street movement, a lot of folks with mortgage level student debt are not marketable in today’s world. I don’t want to be mean, but part of me wants to ask why you didn’t really research the market. If you had, you would have had a clue. You may have not been 100% prepared, but I went through a similar analysis of my own life almost two decades ago. I looked at the risks and rewards associated with college. You have to really crunch the numbers.

I knew a person who had a job that most people needed a degree to get. He got it because he actually went out and started a business in that field and became exceptionally knowledgeable. He doesn’t look for jobs. They come looking for him. The nugget of wisdom there is if you prepare yourself for your field and gain expertise to a level that people admire and respect, it doesn’t matter if you have a degree many times. You can still make money.

Getting back to the American Dream versus expectations, people are looking for stamp…stamp…stamp…Gimmee…Gimmee…Gimmee. The world doesn’t work that way. It never has and it never will.

We have a new type of slave today. They’re called college graduates with heavy student loans. That’s the new slave. That’s the new “Gotcha.” If you have from $60K to $150K in student loan debt, it could haunt you for the next 20 or 30 years, robbing you of the ability to start a business, buy a house or have a decent life, which is the very thing you went to school to obtain.

It’s kind of ironic when you think about it. You would have been better off taking that $50K to $80K and starting a Subway franchise. You’d be making money. I’ve noticed very few Subway locations closing.

The American Dream is pretty much whatever you want it to be. People have created their version of the American Dream that may or may not mesh with their life. That’s the problem. It comes from not applying critical thinking to your life.

We’re bombarded by a ton of information every day. If you want to learn things you can do it on the internet from the comfort of your home. One of the problems people have is a lack of focus. They want to be in touch with everything. I actually eliminate some of the information I receive because I realize I don’t need it.

There are a lot of things I don’t watch or consume because they don’t make me any smarter. Some of it actually makes me stupid. That’s one of the reasons my TV watching time is pretty low compared to the average person’s. I’ve probably watched 10 hours this week and it’s Friday.

I have a challenge for you. Take an hour today and unplug. Turn off your TV and your cellphone. Write down what you want out of life. Be specific. You’ll be amazed what you come up with when you are not distracted.

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There are people out there who are blogging and vlogging, tweeting, Instagramming and YouTubing. Some of these people have 8000, 12000, 20,000 followers; and they’re not making any money.

Today, I was having this great conversation with somebody and it was a little weird because they were like, “I set up my LLC and I got business cards. Now, I’m looking for office space.” I asked them this question. “Have you made any money with your business?” She said, “No. Not yet, but I’m going to make millions.”

In this blog, we’re going to talk about how to make your first $10K and the value of making that money. Spending a lot of money before you earn any money with your business is a big problem. The first thing you need to do every day when you wake up is to make some money. I don’t care if it’s a dollar. Your job is to make money that day, not the next day or the next week or the next month.

What a lot of entrepreneurs do is they get all romantic about getting knowledge, theory and putting together this stuff and not really making any money. Don’t be like that.

Everybody needs a coach. Great athletes and business moguls all have great coaches. Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban all had coaches that helped them become successful. All of these guys had a coach. Then you decide you are going to figure your business out on your own. That’s why 90% of all businesses fail in the first two years. My first five businesses failed because I was trying to figure it out on my own.

Once I got some education, life was different. So, your first job is to make money every day. Your second job is to study so you can improve your business. When I say you need a coach, one of your coaches can be a book. One of the best coaches I ever had was Earl Nightingale in his course, Lead the Field. Then there was Brian Tracy, Tommy Hopkins, Tony Robbins, Jack Welch and Drucker. I never met any of these people, but they were my mentors and coaches.

The third thing is you’ve got to find your customer. This is why. I do HustlersKungFu.com and I use profanity. I call people “scared little bitches.” That’s my brand. That’s the lingo of my brand. It intentionally alienates people I don’t want here. Everybody’s not your customer. Most people are not your customer. If you drill it down and figure out who your customer is, then serve your customer to the best of your ability, it’s not a matter of if you’re going to make money, it’s a matter of when.

So, Number 1 – Make money every day. How do you make money every day? Number 1 has subparts. First you have to work on the money acquisition part of your business. You have to generate leads that will make you money. Your moneymaking activities are marketing, branding and sales.

Once you make your first $10K, two things will happen. The first thing that happens is your confidence increases. Secondly, you have some money. What you do with this video is focus on your marketing, sales and branding to make that first $10K.

I’m going to give you a little secret that a lot of people won’t tell you. Social media without context is bullshit. I can prove it to you right now.

Let’s say you go the grocery store, right? Let’s say you go to the mall and to a football game. Look at the football game, the mall and the grocery store as the tip of a funnel.

As you walk in, you see people and they see you, right? So, the exposure is there. Massive exposure is there, right? I want you to think of the last football game or the last time you went to the mall or the grocery store. How many people do you remember? Not that many, if any, right? You had a lot of exposure. Everyone saw you. You saw everyone.

Now. Let’s reverse this. Let’s say you paint yourself purple and write Love Me on your chest. From head to toe, paint yourself purple and walk in with some white shorts and white shoes. Let’s say you go the mall, the grocery store and the football game like that.

You’re going to get a bunch of stares. You might be on the news. Why? Because you branded yourself and you provided context. You are different from the norm. They don’t see a person painted purple every day with Love Me on their chest. People think you’re crazy. Some people are inspired. That’s because you provided context.

If you’re tweeting and Instagramming with no context, I don’t care how much money you spend or how many ads you run; you will go nowhere. That’s what many of you are doing. You’re wondering why you’re struggling. You’re not operating your business using business principles.

So many people are trying to get something for nothing. If you go out and ask for help and offer something in return, then you can often get the help you need. Offer to clean their house. Sometimes, they won’t let you do it, and they will help you because they will realize you’re serious.

So, what’s your job in the morning? Work on money acquisition activities such as marketing, branding and sales. Once again, you don’t need a product once you hammer those skills down. You can go out and find a product and make money. That’s why the product isn’t important. How you relate and talk to the customer is very important. That’s how you make your first $10K.

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A lot of people asked me questions about making money on Amazon with eBooks. They asked me how to do it and if it is still possible?

Right now, someone is working on a book to put on Amazon this month or next month and they’re going to make six figures. So, the question isn’t, is Amazon a good way to make money with eBooks; the question is: do you have the skills sets to make it happen. That’s the real deal.

Many people seem to think they can come up with a book and throw it on Amazon and make money. It’s not going to happen. There’s a process. People who are trying to make a lot of money with a little effort will be disappointed. It’s not going to happen. Part of the success of an eBook happens long before the book is written.

The reason so many people fail is because there is a lack of research and they don’t know the marketplace. If you don’t do your due diligence, then you will fail. That fact really throws a lot of people off.

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Question: Is Amazon still a good place to sell eBooks?

Answer: Yes. If you have the right book and the right marketing, you can make money. There are a lot of intangibles.

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Every night across the world there are millions of people fucking. There are some fat people fucking. Do you want to see that? No, you don’t. The thing is that these fat people are having a great time. It’s wonderful. When you’re in that moment, it’s a good story to you, but it may not be a good story to someone else. This is the type of confusion and perspective that writers must consider if they want to be successful. Is there an audience for the story you want to write?

I know you’ve got a story and you want to put it out there. I am not suggesting that you don’t put it out there. What I am suggesting is that you become realistic about what you think you can get out of that story.

Unfortunately, there have been many people betrayed. There have been many children orphaned. Unless you have a super hero story like Jimmy Graham, there are no guarantees that your story will sell.

Jimmy Graham’s mother put him in an orphanage when he was eleven years old. Do you understand what a mind fuck that is? He was aware of what was going on. He knew his mother didn’t want him and that she put him in an orphanage with other kids whose parents didn’t want them. He excelled in the orphanage and went to college, later becoming a football star in the NFL Now, that’s a story.

Now, let’s look at this story from a different perspective. Let’s say Jimmy wasn’t 6’6” tall. Let’s also assume he doesn’t have natural athletic ability and that instead of becoming a professional football star he became a postal office worker. It’s still a good story, but it’s probably not going to sell millions.

That book that you want to write, write it. It will teach you a lot. Put it out. While you finish that book, think of a book that can make you some money.

I was in a writer’s group in 2010. You need to be working on your second book as soon as you finish your first one. You need to be promoting your book before you even finish it. There are too many people who write their books and then they start marketing and promoting it late in the game. Really, the marketing is where it is.

On Amazon, the big issue you’ll have is discoverability. Just because you write a good book and the cover is nice, that doesn’t mean it will sell. My experiences with Amazon are varied.

You don’t have to be Hemingway to succeed. You just have to be able to put sentences together that people understand that will entertain or educate your readers. That’s it. If you are competent, you can write a book and make some money.

When you put a book out there, unless that book gets lift, you’re not going to sell many. Lift is marketing and paid traffic. It is an influencer who promotes your books and gives it a public review that is good. If you don’t have lift, your book will get lost in the sea of books.

If you are a writer and you want to make money with a book on Amazon, you have to write something people want to read. In the fiction genre, you need to have a main character that people love and can root for. You need to put that character through some twists and turns. Write a series of 4, 5, 6 books.

With eBooks, it’s a 60-day payment window before you get your royalties from a sale. I didn’t really like that. When you sell books with other distributors or on your own, the payment window is much shorter. It can make a difference if you’re barely making it.

You can make money on Amazon. You can make a lot of money on Amazon. Is it easy? No.

I think a good book with a good cover and a good marketing campaign will make you money. I’ve done it in my name and in pen names. So. It’s all about the system.

An important factor that impacts your chance for success is the genre. You can write a shitty book in a popular genre and make money. You can spend ten years writing an epic and not make a dime. These are the types of things you have to consider when writing a book to put on Amazon.

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Question: Any advice for me as an internet marketer with pin up girls and public domain right book copyright issues?

Answer: Because of the items you’re marketing, more than likely, you’re not going to get the AdSense money. So, let that go. Number 2 – About your Pin Up girls and public domain books, right now in copyright law, if someone thinks that they own that information and they file against YouTube, YouTube has an automated process for handling that problem. One of the first things you should do is try to appeal if you can. If you appeal and it gets squashed, more than likely they looked at it and decided they weren’t going to screw with it.

The only way you can get that stuff restored is to go to court. I don’t see it being worth that for the $117 they owe you. You have to decide what to do in cases like this on a case by case basis. This is one of the reasons I don’t use pictures from the Internet for my thumbnails. I pay for my pictures.

I’m going to tell you a quick story about music. I went out and bought music and paid for it two or three years ago and now I’m getting soft copyright strikes. What that means is if the video is monetized, the holder of the copyright will get the money. What I think is happening is all of these songs are being purchased because people know they can make some money off the copyright claims when people use them. Millions of pennies add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s why I don’t use popular songs. You can use the songs in the Apple iMovie screen. You can use those with no problem. But, be careful. Like I said, they’re soft copyright strikes. It’s not a strike against your channel. Nothing is being pulled down.

Fortunately, I stopped using music and other things on my video before it got to be a problem. Now, it’s all my stuff. You’ve got to go ahead and make your stuff.

To make money online, you have to start where you’re strong. Look at all your skill sets and what you know how to do. Think about what you can bring to the table that can bring you some money. That’s going to take some time and exploration on your part.

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Question: What sort of tricks did you use to establish the good habits of honing your craft when it came to writing and other content creation? What kind of tricks did you use to kick the bad habits?

Answer: With creating content, it’s all about environment. I’ve always had a home office. When I sit down, I can immediately go to work. I have a work environment that is conducive for me to do what I need to do. Some people think going out and getting office furniture and a real office chair is overkill. Trust me, it goes a long way towards helping your productivity.

You have to eliminate distractions. Turn Facebook off. Turn your phone notifications off. If you can, devote an hour a day where you are unplugged from the internet, you should. No Facebook. No YouTube. You are going to focus on the task at hand. Two hours are even better. If you can do three hours, you will kill it.

This is the thing. Many people don’t work. They want to work. They want to produce stuff. This is what happens. They sit at their desk and they work for 15 minutes, then they check Facebook and the next thing you know, an hour has gone by.

So, eliminate distractions and operate from a list. Forget winging it. Create a “To Do” list every day. Then make a list of things that come up. Keep your main list and your hot list. Then knock out your items.

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Question: I have a real estate website and I’d like to know how to generate traffic to the site.

Answer: You have to ask yourself why would someone go to your website. If I asked you that question and you hear it and you pause, that’s problem #1. And problem #2 – People go to real estate websites when they have a need. Sometimes people go to luxury real estate websites to look at beautiful homes. If you’re going to do luxury real estate, get the best pictures and the best properties.

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Question: I saw your video 25 Ways to Make Money Without a Job. I want to put some stuff on Udemy, do you have anybody who can help me do that? I want to make some money on it, but I don’t want to do the work that it takes to get everything on there.

Answer: This is the thing with doing Udemy courses. There are many of you who want to automate or outsource your course creation. As someone who has been creating courses for six years, let me tell you why that is implausible for most people unless you already have an assistant or you already have a system or a team in place.

It’s going to require a lot of hours with high-priced consultants to complete the project. You’re looking at 150 hours to 200 hours. The price will be exorbitant.

The Udemy platform doesn’t make it easy to put courses up there. My suggestion to you is to take an hour a day and do a little every day. Will it get done fast? No. But you won’t kill yourself. You won’t become overwhelmed and eventually it will get done.

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Question: I need some direction on my internet business.

Answer: Find something that you really like and something you do well and create a product or service or a website around that.

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Question: I’m an independent claims adjuster. I want to discuss strategy. I make six figures. I work 11 hours a day, six days a week. I have kids I’d like to spend time with. I’m currently a toastmaster and want to pursue my public speaking career, which is where my hiccup comes in because I have so many other things I am good at that it is hard for me to decide. I do have a life coaching business. But again, I am interested in public speaking. I’ve done everything from radio to makeup. I’d like to talk to you and get a little more direction.

Answer: Number 1 – You’ve got way too much going on. You’re going to have to get rid of most of that stuff. You already have a gig that gives you six figures. You’ve got income coming in and you can take care of the family. I have a friend who does public speaking and it took him five years to get where he wanted to be.

My suggestion is you get rid of the speaking and life coaching. Why don’t you start a firm that does what you do? Repeat yourself. Create a training program and then outsource your services at a larger level. What you’re doing as an individual, you can do as a boss.

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To be successful, you have to make a decision. A firm decision is a commitment. We live in a society where people don’t want to make commitments to an idea, to school or whatever. They just want to be free and do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it. That’s how a lot of people are rolling. I’m not going to pass judgment.

What I will say is if you live a life like that then at the end of your life, there probably won’t be a bunch of people at your funeral. It’s not because you’re a bad person. It’s because you didn’t plant any seeds. At the funerals I’ve attended, they said amazing stuff about the people who passed away.

I read this book a long time ago and it said to imagine the end of your life and how you would want your book to read about your life. Essentially, if you don’t make a decision and you don’t stand for anything or make any commitments, you’re not going to have that at the end of your life because what you do today dictates what’s going to happen later on.

Also, speaking in terms of making a decision and in terms of life and death, you don’t know how much time you have. There are many people who put things off. They say things like, “I’ll do it next year. I’ll do it in five years. I’ll do it in six years.”

My dear dear friend and business partner died at the age of 47. She ate healthy and did all the right things and died of colon cancer. What I’m saying to you is if you have a dream and you want to do something, the time is now. The time to make that decision is now, because you have no clue if you’re still going up the mountain or on the other side. The time is ticking away.

As I look back, the regrets I have aren’t the regrets I thought I’d have. For the most part if I had an idea and I wanted to do something, I went with it. It’s a different kind of thing. There aren’t a lot of regrets.

If I had kept that stable job forever, my regret pile would be ten feet high. I’m not telling you to do anything radical, but what I’m asking you to do today after you watch this video is pull out a piece of paper and write down your goals. Then make a commitment to do whatever is on it. If you want to learn a new language or start a business, do it. Put it on the list and make a commitment to do it as soon as possible.

I know I don’t want to be taking my last breaths with regrets. There are going to be some regrets in living life. Ok. These things happen. You’ve got a choice. You can have a long regret list or it can be really short.

Don’t be afraid to make a decision. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to move forward with something you’ve never done. You’re never going to become good at it unless you actually step out and try it.

I would rather you go out and try and stumble and fail versus sitting back and not trying it. I’ve got people in my life who have been working on stuff for 4, 5, or 6 years and strangely enough I’ve built a business in less time. What I’m saying is I’ve built a business in three years and for 5 years they’ve been thinking about building a business. Stop that shit.

Affiliate yourself with people that motivate you. There are tons of people out there. You need to take action with a sense of urgency.

There are a lot of people out there in YouTube land and on Facebook and the internet that really helped me a lot. I give and I turn around and people are throwing stuff at me. It blows my mind.

You’re not going to reap anything if you’re not sowing anything. In my view, this is how the world works. You give and you get.

In the past three years, I’ve gone through this big change in my life with my circle of friends. I noticed something today at the funeral. The group I have now is super quality. It’s like the quality I was used to when I was growing up.

I grew up in a little town in Alabama. People were concrete. They were solid. If Mr. Jones said he was going to do XYZ, he would do it.

I can’t stand flaky people. They drive me crazy. I feel like if you say you’re going to do something, then you should do it. If you can’t do it, then I expect you to at least explain why not.

I grew up in a neighborhood that was poor to middle class. A lot of men in my neighborhood were really responsible. That’s where I got a lot of my values from.

Imagine if in the process of chasing your dream that it puts you in a position where you have to give and give. You’ll be freaking amazed at what happens to you on the other end. It will blow your mind.

What I’m saying is you need to get started on what you want to do. You need to start right now with what you have and where you are. The perfect time is right now.

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To make a living without a job, the first thing that is incredibly important is strategy. You have to design the strategy. Let me tell you where a lot of people go wrong. It is very critical and detrimental to their potential success.

I have a phrase I call the Get Money Hustler. This is a person who has to get money because the walls are closing in. They have to get money. It creates a very tense situation. That’s really not condusive to making money.

Understand the urge to pay bills is a strong one. The urge to survive is an even stronger one. But in a Get Money Hustler phase, you just go out there and do stuff and you don’t create long-term success. You might have some good luck and spend $50 and make $1,000. You might spend $1,000 and make $10,000. It’s nice, but that’s a home run mentality and it doesn’t happen that often.

In this Get Money Hustler phase, you create a habit of doing things to get money without building a long-term business platform. That’s what kills you because your efforts can’t duplicate themselves. You can’t build on them.

You get stuck at a certain level and you can never move past it. You stay right there. That’s because there is no goal in place and there’s no strategy. Let me give you an example of how to implement Get Money Hustling into long-term hustling.

Long-term hustling starts with some questions. What do you want to do with your life? Where do you want to be? What do you want for your kids? Where do you want to live? Put your desires out there on paper and work your way back.

If you want to be a stay-at-home mom and you want to make some extra money, in the world we live in, you can easily create a business in your home that will provide you $1,000 to $2000 extra per month. It will take you from six months to a year. It’s very, very doable.

So, you have that platform. You’ve found a product or service you can do from home and it’s making you $2,000 a month. Then what you need to do is go out and get money hustling on top of that base of income. It becomes a different ballgame. You want to have that consistent income stream.

Anyone who diligently does their research and applies 20 hours a week can easily make $500 extra a month on eBay. Actually, if you put that kind of time in, you might make $1,000.

What a lot of people are doing is they’re going from thing to thing to thing. This type of activity comes from not having goals or designing a strategy. People often jump around like that chasing the new “hot” trendy thing.

I don’t care if it’s YouTube or eBay or Craigslist, if you consistently work with a plan, you will be successful. You will make money.

In the beginning, it will not be big money, but you are learning things. You’re adding value to yourself. You gain experience.

Strategy is of the utmost importance. Strategy is everything. Have you ever taken one hour and actually created a goal sheet for your life? Have you ever done that? I know a lot of people haven’t.

When I say to do this, people tend to do what I call, “Big Stuff” goals. They say things like, “I want to get married.” “I want to buy a house.”

What I’m talking about when I say you should set goals is specific goals like, “I want a four bedroom, two-car garage, split-level will brick on four sides.” If you set goals like that, the chances of you getting that will dramatically increase. Creating a life without a job hinges on your dreams and those dreams turn into goals.

In the beginning, you may have to have a maniacal focus to get the business off the ground. There may be a few years where you work like a madman. Once you get the thing off the ground and learn how to leverage yourself, you can create your own hours.

Part of being really, really successful in my opinion is having that business and also having a life. It is having the time and energy to enjoy the money you’re making. When I say you should get rich, I’m not only talking in terms of money. One of the most precious and valuable commodities you have is your time. Being rich is more than money. It’s about your health. It’s about time with friends and family. It’s about enjoying yourself.

Take four hours to design your strategy. Take four sheets of paper. At the top of one sheet of paper, put Business Goals. Then on another sheet of paper, write Life Goals. Then on another sheet of paper, write Fun Stuff, and on the fourth piece of paper, write Family. Start writing down your goals on each sheet of paper.

Write everything down. Do not censor yourself. This is a powerful exercise because a lot of people are afraid to dream. They’re afraid to think big. They’re afraid to dare to do something they’ve never done before. I’m telling you, most people sell themselves short.

Once you have these four sheets done, see how they fit together. If they don’t work well together or they’re incompatible, you’re going to have internal conflict that is going to rob you of your energy to accomplish your goals. You must adjust your goals so they align with each other.

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I know you’re chillin’ out. You’re thinking I can’t wait until the weekend. That’s because Monday sucks and Tuesday sucks and the rest of the weekdays suck. Then you’re thinking, what the fuck am I doing with my life. Every day you work in that job, a little piece of you dies.

How did you end up here? I’m going to tell you. You fell prey to this idea we have in our society that recommends that you don’t work hard, but that you work smart. I’ve really dissected that. Anytime that I have been marginally to very successful I’ve worked my ass off.

What is it about hard work that creates such a distraction? I had to think about this. I had to take a different look.

I was brought up on the tail end of the baby boomer to Generation XY timeframe. The way I was brought up, hard work was noble. I was brought up to believe a good day’s work was something to be proud of. Now at the intersection of technology, life skills, lifestyle and social values, things got kind of fucked up.

Let’s say you are supposed to build this brick wall. The bricks are 20 feet away. Your job is to go over there and bring those bricks to the wall. Someone else stacks the bricks. You have this procession of work. In the beginning, it’s not that bad. With every brick, it gets heavier. Then the 20 feet gets longer.

Your back hurts. Your forearm hurts. You swell up because you’re working hard. The problem is you’re working hard in the wrong area. Many people have worked very hard in the wrong area. So, here’s this idea being touted that you should not work hard, but you should work smart.

No one is saying that you should work hard in the right area. That’s the disconnect. That’s the problem.

Another accepted idea by society is that if you get an education, you’ll make more money. That is true. The disconnect comes when the term education is not defined. What’s an education? Is it a college degree? Is it a secondary degree? Is it self-knowledge? Is it just stumbling upon something and finding out you’re good? The answer is all of the above.

In 2009, I just pulled a wild hair out of my ass and decided I was going to write a book. I didn’t know what I was doing. I made many errors. I had people laughing at me. During that period of July 2009 and October of that year, I learned so much about book covers and Amazon’s Create Space program. There were so many things you had to learn. I learned more in those few months than some people my age have learned in the last ten years.

That’s the issue. Because people are trying to work smart, but not work hard, how do you know if you are working smart? You might think you’re working smart, but you might be working dumb ass hard. That’s not going to get you what you want. You’re going to be unhappy.

So, how do we solve the conundrum of not working hard or working smart? I’m going to give you a few steps. It all begins with you.

Unless you are factoring in what makes you happy and what you want to be in life, you’re working hard or attempting to work smart in someone else’s program that you may not even like. But because it sounds good on paper when someone you don’t know and don’t care about comes up and asks you, “Hey, what are you doing?” You can say. “I’ve got two jobs and I’m in school.” Props all around. You’re doing everything that other people expect of you. But, you’re not happy. You’re drinking too much and you’re depressed.

How do we solve this?

#1 You’ve got to ask yourself, what do you want out of life? No matter what your mother of your father wants for you, pick something for yourself. What do you want for yourself? It doesn’t matter what you do. It matters how well you do it and how happy you are doing it.

It can take some time to figure that out if you’ve never done it before. People don’t know where to start. It can be a painful process.

#2 You must give yourself permission to choose.

#3 You’re going to have to make some changes. You’re going to have to do some internal renovations. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be painful. People may laugh at you.

Once you get your head together, your life will come together. Let me tell you what’s going to happen if you work hard. Things are going to hurt. Your mind is going to rebel. You’re going to start taking action.

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The first thing you need to do is pick something you know how to do. This is “hands down” one of the biggest reasons so many people aren’t successful. Many people are completely missing opportunities that may be in their own backyard.

I want to give you an example of someone I used to work for who turned what he knew how to do into a multi-million-dollar business. This is how it got started. I ended up working for them before they made the last jump to actually purchasing a building.

This is how the business was started. The guy that started that business got the idea from something that happened on his job. One of the tasks of his job was to go out and find some cubicles. He was supposed to find some new cubicles, right? He looked at the price and it was a lot higher than the budget he was given, so he started looking at used ones.

One day when he was talking to a guy he was told, “If you take these cubicles out, you can have them.” At this point he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he takes the cubicles. Then he does some research and puts a crew together. He finds a company that paints the stuff. The paint company owner eventually becomes his new business partner.

He saved his company so much money that he realized he need to quit his job. What he saved his company by selling that stuff is more than he made in a year. He realized he needed to check this out, so he quit his job. That’s the short version of what happened.

It is worth mentioning that the guy didn’t start the business without resources. He had money. He had a job. He had connections. He started going around finding cubicles and then his partner joined him. They moved literally six times before I came on board. That’s how fast they were growing.

This is a business he knew about. He had established connections. He had built a team. He got installers. It grew to a point where they were earning $170K to $200K per month.

Let’s discuss that. You want to start a business and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. You should pick something you already know how to do even if you hate it. Remember that your goal here is to make money, not necessarily to be happy in the beginning. If you set the business up right, you won’t have to do the work you hate.

Too many people are chasing the happiness fairy. They want to do something that is fulfilling, but they don’t have any money to get started. I’ll give you a great example. A lot of people are pissed off that Trump won the election and they are losing it.

This is the thing. It’s too late to complain now. You should have been forming a coalition before the election. Only 26% of the country’s population put him in office. Essentially, 26% of the population made a decision for 74%. That’s what happened. The lesson here is that if you want your agenda pushed, you’ve got to take those early steps.

Once you identify what you want to do, you need to approach it with vigor. Let’s go back to the last example. Once the guy saw how much money he could make, he went home and talked to his wife. He informed her he was quitting his job. She freaked out. He said, “Trust me on this.”

From Day 1, he approached it like a business, even though it was hustle at first and he didn’t quit his job immediately. He was going out on his lunch hour looking for panels. Then his partner who owned the painting company actually invested in the guys who did the installation. They built this whole solar system of money. He still had a job while he was doing all of this. He didn’t quit his job until it started costing him money to keep working as an employee. A lot of people don’t want to do that.

You’re going to have to start structuring your hustles into something that can grow into a business later on. That’s what you’re going to have to do. If you don’t do that, you’re going to get stuck at this level where you can’t grow.

There are many people who feel that America is not great. We’re losing our jobs. If you are a company and you have a position, the company owns that job. That job is not owned by America or the people. Whenever I hire someone, that’s me. The trend of automation eating the world is not going to change.

Wait until these driverless semi-trucks hit the road. Truck drivers are going to lose jobs. A lot of dock workers are going to lose jobs. There currently aren’t enough jobs for the people who turn 18 every month. That’s one of the reasons things are so rough.

If you’re a business owner, hear me and hear me now. Things are radically different for you because you are a creator and a hustler. You are putting stuff together. You are the owner of your destiny. You have a better chance of winning. Now, take some time and identify your opportunity. Too many people just want to jump off into something and make some money real fast.

This is the time to reframe and rethink and begin hustling on a different level. Just tell yourself that regardless of who is in office, I’m going to make money.

Find something you already know how to do, even if you hate it. Ride it out for a year or two. If you build it a certain way, you don’t have to do the work.

This is the thing that is messing up a lot of people. Some things will never happen, even if you want them. If you don’t have certain tools or skills, it can’t happen. While everybody is always talking about following your passion, most of them are broke.

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We’re going to jump into what you really need to start crushing it on eBay. The first thing you need is to change your attitude. One of the things I see time and time again is people trying to conform eBay to what they want it to be versus dealing with eBay the way it is.

eBay is a third-party platform that doesn’t give a shit about you, your family, your needs, or whether you’re sick or not. It does not care. None of that is relevant.

The second thing you have to do is from day one, you have to treat it like a business, not just a hobby. I’m going to explain how I learned this stuff and some of the things that happened to me that gave me the perspective I have today about eBay and Amazon. I never did eBay alone. We got to $10K, then to $20K in 2001 and 2002.

You’re going to need a team. If you think you’re going to make a million in gross sales by yourself, it’s not going to happen. There’s too much work. Now what kind of team members do you need?

You need a sourcing team. This is one, two or three people who are out looking for stuff at least three to five days a week. Every day their job is to go out and find stuff. You’re listing all of the time. You are always pushing forward.

This is one of the fundamental rules of business. The more offers that you make, the more chances you have to make money. When you post something on eBay, that’s an offer.

You need to bring your sourcing team on one person at a time. Notice I said, team. If you fall into the trap where you do all the listing, your business will take a long time to scale. You want to develop your team and you want to be management. You want to work on your business versus being your business.

Most eBay sellers are the business. They have to do bulk uploads or massive listings if they want to go on vacation. Once you develop a system, a business model and a team, you don’t have to do that.

What you need to do is find a category you feel you can dominate based on your personal resources and your interests. You want everybody looking for that item to find you first. You want to consistently list in that category.

Everyone wants to get into those blazing hot categories where you just list something and it sells immediately. The problem with that situation is that you are going to be facing fierce competition that will drive the prices down and cut your profits.

You’re better off finding unique things that will sell well. For example, we found some pot holders at one point in a storage unit. We did not know how popular they were until we put them on eBay. We got $89 for six of them. At that point, I started looking for them You want to find that type of stuff because it was really unique and most competitors will not take the extra steps necessary to find it. That keeps the price up because your competition is minimal.

The next thing you need is a photo booth. This is supreme. If you have an iPhone 7 which has a really nice camera, you can probably get away with using that. Use the in-depth feature. My suggestion is that you go on eBay or Amazon and buy a used Canon TTI or something like that, then get yourself a 55MM lens, because that lens is for portraits. Next, you want to create a photo booth.

Then you’ll need to rent a warehouse space with 1500 to 2000 square feet. You will grow much faster with a warehouse. With a warehouse, you’re going to start bumping into your “eBay threshold.”

For each type of item that is unique, you want to create a new eBay ID. At one point, I had 12 of them. The reason you want to do that is because if someone is buying a $2K bedroom suite from you, they don’t want to see that you also sell lollipops. When you are selling something expensive, people really get paranoid.

You want to scale up your price points. If you’re staying at $20 and $30 items, it’s going to take a long time to make any real money. It is better to start selling at the $500 or $1000 price point, even though your risk also goes up exponentially.

You’ll need to hire a customer service person next. Over the years I’ve learned this. If someone emails you about something they want to buy, the sooner you can get back to them, the more likely you are to make that sale.

After hiring a customer service person, you need a marketing plan. I’m going to tell you what I did and what will still work. I pushed a lot of traffic from Craigslist to eBay. By having it on eBay, it allowed us to sell it out of the warehouse. By creating this marketing plan, you’ll be able to talk to your customers outside of the eBay platform. Since you’re driving traffic there, you can put those people on the email list.

If you’re selling Levy Jeans and everybody knows you because you dominate that category, you can develop an email list. You can develop a trade-in program on eBay. You are pimping eBay for fun and profit. By using eBay’s power and traffic, you are building a durable business while you put stuff on eBay.

You want to create a new eBay account for each eBay ID. I know it’s easier to have that one shotgun ID and to sell everything you come across, but segmentation will make you more money because you will become an authority. Each ID is linked to a different PayPal account and has a different marketing scheme.

You should set a goal to have no more than 20% of your income come from eBay. With a million dollar per year goal, you use eBay as a ramp up device for your business. eBay is going to limit your accounts in the beginning. By limiting your business revenues to only 20% on eBay, you have options if eBay or PayPal starts holding your money because your business is perceived as risky since you are growing so quickly. You can turn to Craigslist or sell out of your warehouse or from your email list.

If you won’t build teams and hire people, it’s holding you back. Write down an income goal. It needs to be a number that makes you sweat. When you hit that number, you will have self-confidence.

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I’ve run across a lot of people who use these types of phrases often, “When I was” or “I planned on” or “When things get better” or “When the time is right.” To me, that is some of the most insipid bullshit on the planet. You can’t wait and procrastinate for too long.

Even when you are forced to wait on something, you have to be in motion towards that end. You can’t just completely sit back and wait and hope and dream. Action is crucial.

I had an expression in my dating life. I said to myself, I’d rather go down in flames than like a little dog with my tail between my legs. There were times I put myself in situations that were uncomfortable where I didn’t feel very confident. Over time, I became comfortable and confident because I kept putting myself out there. I kept putting myself in these situations.

There’s a lesson there. In the beginning when you start out with something new, it’s not going to be cozy and comfortable. Let that shit go. If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.

Being uncomfortable and putting yourself in situations that force you to grow and excel is a great way for you to become the person you want to be. It’s not going to happen in your comfort zone. It isn’t.

At one point, I had some very bad internal language that was going on. It was crazy. I was going through a transition period adjusting to leaving the storage auction business.

You have to continue to grow. You have to continue to push. I finally told myself during this career transition, “I am not going to talk about what I used to do and what I used to have.” It’s a new year. It’s a new life.

That’s when I started working on different stuff. That’s when things got better. I would say, “I’m currently working on this.” That’s a better conversation. It’s more refreshing. It’s more gratifying. What I’m telling you is, you can’t keep talking about what you used to do in the past after a certain amount of time has gone by.

Now, let’s just get into it. Let’s talk about why you were never going to do it in the first place. There are many people who have grandiose dreams and ideas. They use protective code words or excuses saying things like, “I don’t have enough education.” “I don’t have enough money.” My answer to that is: “Ok. Get the education. Get the money.”

What these people are really saying when they make these excuses is that it is not really important enough to them to make the personal sacrifices necessary. They are never going to do it. These are code words. If someone has been working on getting something up and going for 20 years, they were never going to do it in the first place.

I love the movie Collateral with Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise. There’s this scene where Jamie is talking to Tom Cruise about starting his own limousine company. Tom Cruise looks at him and says, “You were never going to do it in the first place. What’s a lease on a limo, about $425 a month?” It was stunningly true.

Many Americans don’t realize the gifts and the joy they have as an American citizen. They take it for granted. You have people coming from impoverished circumstances and communist regimes who can’t believe the amount of opportunity here. All they have to do is work. Immigrants work hard and start a lot of businesses.

A lot of people will reply to me when I make this point. They say things like, “Glendon, it’s not that simple. They have special programs. They get special money. They get special tax breaks.” I’m going to call bullshit on all that. Even if what they say is true, it does not take away from the amount of hard work required to get their business started. That’s where the argument runs off the road.

With these notions that “I can’t do it,” or “I’m waiting on the right time,” those are all excuses for hiding your fear of failure or in some cases, your fear of success. Failure hurts and success dictates that you do things differently. A lot of people are definitely afraid of change.

Understand, you were never going to do it anyway if the following things happen.

It’s been about ten years since you first had the idea.

You never came up with any goals.

You never took action.

You talk about it more than you do it.

These four indicators mean you were never going to do it. It just sounds good at a party.

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